Vow
by Misanagi
Summary: Part of the Briny Deep Series. In a dark cell one man waits, and another comes to keep him company. AU, fantasy, angst.


**Vow**

**By Misanagi**

Rating: PG 13

Characters: Quatre and Trowa

Warnings: AU, fantasy, angst.

Summary: In a dark cell one man waits, and another comes to keep him company.

Dedication: For Anne. Happy Birthday!

Thanks to Lil for looking it over to make sure things are not too confusing.

* * *

Quatre woke up and was startled by the lack of light. The dull ache on his back reminded him soon enough that he wasn't in his room. He sat up slowly and leaned against the wall. His whole body felt sore for sleeping on the floor for five days. Not for the first time, he contemplated the option of healing himself, but it seemed frivolous to waste energy healing something as superficial as soreness. He had endured much more in the past.

He sighed, wanting to introduce some sound to the silent dungeon. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could hear the muffled sounds of the prison upstairs, but they seemed too far away. The guard in charge of bringing him his food had noticed that Quatre didn't like the silence, so he tried to stay down there as long as possible, talking to Quatre and filling the room with sound. He had said Quatre had healed his sister. "You did it, even with your curse," he had said. Quatre had just smiled and gratefully accepted the company.

Standing up slowly, Quatre tried to stretch his limbs. He had spent time confined in the punishment cell at the Temple far too many times, and he had learned a few tricks that help him make the time there more bearable. Of course, it had been at least three years since he had been in one of those. When Healers finished their training, they couldn't be sent to the punishment cell again. That didn't mean that the Elders hadn't found other means of punishment for disobedient Healers.

Quatre had to admit that the curse, as most people called it, had been very well thought out. Only a handful of people knew exactly what the punishment the Elders had sentenced him to entail. Quatre had heard all sorts of rumors. Some people said his life had been cut in half, others that he had been cursed with eternity, that he had been deprived of sleep forever or that food turned to ashes in his mouth and water burned his throat with never ending thirst. The punishment the Elders had devised was, however, simpler, more effective, and designed to correct Quatre's erroneous ways not to torment him. It hadn't worked.

After walking a few times around the cell, and practicing as many sword moves he could without a sword and in such a confined place, Quatre leaned against the wall and allowed himself some rest. The pot with water was still half full so he took a grateful sip before putting it back on the corner. The guard wouldn't come back for half a day, and Quatre needed to ration his water till then.

The sound of the heavy door on top of the stairs opening caught Quatre's attention. The light of the outside never reached the cell, but Quatre's eyes had already grown used to the dark so he recognized the figure coming down the stairs almost immediately.

"Trowa."

He had only seen Heero's first mate a few times before. The first time they had been crossing swords on the Maguanac ship, just before Heero jumped in and took Trowa's place. The second had been hours later, when Quatre had jumped over to the pirate ship to heal the crew. Trowa had had a long cut in his arm. The last time they had seen each other, Trowa had been standing behind Heero on the courtroom waiting, like everyone else, for the verdict.

Trowa descended the stairs quietly and walked straight to Quatre's cell, not showing any signs of being bothered by the lack of light. When he was close enough, Quatre walked closer to the open bars. He wanted to ask Trowa what he was doing there, but instead he said, "I can't leave."

Five days ago he had said the same thing to Iria. She had promised that they would be okay, but Quatre knew that if he even tried to escape, his family would suffer the consequences. Iria had accused him of not thinking that before offering to take Heero's place, but it wasn't true, and she knew it as well. Quatre had known. He had stood up on the court house and invoked the right of substitution knowing full well what that meant. "What if he doesn't come back?" Iria had said. "He's not your friend any more, Quatre. He's a pirate now. He'll run and you'll die." Quatre didn't believe her for a second.

The judge had tried to dissuade him too and Heero had simply refused Quatre's offer. But Heero was a commoner and Quatre was a noble and a Healer. His word would be the one the counsel would take and so they did. Heero Yuy would be free to go and recover the stolen magical White Book, and Quatre would take his place and his sentence. Heero had usual ten days before a death sentence was carried out to return with the book, or Quatre would die in his place.

Trowa nodded his head once and leaned against the wall. "I didn't think you would. With your powers, you could have broken out of here already if you wanted to."

Mimicking Trowa's position on the other side of the iron bars, Quatre shook his head. "I'm not a sorcerer. I can't manipulate the elements like your friend Wufei does. I'm a Healer. Our powers are very different."

There was silence again. Quatre shifted his weight from feet to feet. He didn't want the silence to come back. "Why are you here?"

Trowa swallowed. "I didn't think you should be alone."

They hadn't crossed more than a few words before. Actually, Quatre thought their short sword fight had lasted more than any possible conversation. All the times they had met Heero had been there. Heero was the only thing that linked them: a mutual friend. "You should have gone. Heero will need you." The idea of Heero sailing without his first mate, especially to go to such a dangerous mission, worried Quatre.

"He won't leave you here to die." Even in the darkness, Quatre could see Trowa's eyes, and the serious look they held.

Quatre smiled. "I know." The smile faded. "I still worry. If that priestess went t such lengths to frame him, who knows what she's capable of? I just think he could use all the help he can get."

Trowa's next question surprised Quatre. "Did you know he had been framed before you touched the dagger?"

It was easy to see the hidden query. Had Quatre thought Heero would steal the White Book? Heero was the captain of the most fearsome pirate ship, after all. He had boarded Quatre's ship just hours before the book had disappeared, with the intention of robbing whatever they were transporting. He just hadn't known it was the White Book, or that Quatre would have been guarding it. "I thought he was guilty," Quatre admitted. "But after seeing him I knew he wasn't. I didn't need the vision to know. I just had to look at him."

Heero and Quatre hadn't seen each other in five years. The day Quatre had gone to the Temple to begin his two years of seclusion Heero had promise him, again, that he would be there when Quatre came out. He wasn't. Maybe it was resentment what made Quatre doubt Heero's innocence, but any suspicion he had felt towards Heero had been erased when they opened the cell door and he looked at his friend's face.

The vision Quatre got when he touched the dagger left at the White Tower, Heero's weapon, confirmed Heero's innocence and pointed the culprit: the priestess. Quatre had met her at the party that night, and his vision left no doubt that it was her who had used an illusion to look like Heero and steal the book. The accounts of the guards and the fact that they had found Heero's dagger on the tower had been enough to incriminate him. The priestess had fled and Heero was found guilty of the worst possible crime against the kingdom, stealing the book that was believed to be the source of their magic.

"He'll get the book back," Trowa said. "He won't let you die."

"I know," Quatre whispered. He knew Heero wouldn't abandon him. If Heero didn't come back in five days, it would mean he failed, and Quatre would die in his place for a crime none of them committed.

Maybe Trowa sensed that the silence was getting too heavy again because he said, "The Maguanacs bordered ship with him. They are working as the crew."

"They don't want me to die…"

The Maguanac ship had been Quatre's ship. He had been assigned as the ship Healer shortly after the Elders had performed the spell on him, when they trusted the spell would make him behave. It didn't and Quatre made friends with the crew, fighting alongside them when it was needed, helping on deck and refusing to get any special treatment.

"They are just returning the favor." Trowa kneeled down and sat against the wall. "You've healed them many times."

Quatre looked down at Trowa and didn't reply. He sat down too and looked at his dirty sandals. There was nothing to say.

Trowa broke the silence once more. "Your friend, the one with the long braid, he's on the ship too."

Quatre's head snapped up. "Duo?"

"He said he was going to make sure Heero came back." The corners of Trowa's lips twitched. "I don't think he trusts Heero very much."

"He doesn't know him," Quatre replied. "And he never understood why he left… neither did I."

"Ask him when he comes back."

Feeling the need to change the topic Quatre asked, "Isn't it dangerous for you to be down here?"

Trowa stretched his legs and put his arms behind his head. "The guards let me in. It took me a while to get inside the prison compound and contact Hilde, but once I did, they guards let me inside this dungeon." He turned to Quatre, holding his eyes. "A lot of people respect you in this town, including the guards."

Quatre blinked, and when his eyes opened Trowa was no longer looking at him. "How do you know Hilde?"

"Howard told me to look for her when I got inside the prison walls," he replied. "Duo sent me to Howard before he left. He didn't want you to be in here alone either." Quatre opened his mouth to say something but Trowa continued before he could. "Howard told me what you've been doing, teaching commoner healers how to use their powers."

It was ridiculous, but Quatre still felt the need to ask Trowa to lower his voice and to look around to make sure no one had listened. No one had said those words before, not even when they were sure there was no one around. They always spoke in code, making sure that if they were ever heard then people wouldn't understand. The Healer's laws were old and strict. They detailed everything regarding a Healer's life, from the moment they were discovered and no longer considered free but part of the Order, to their training, their conduct, their chores and the rituals to perform at their deaths. One of the more widely known laws was that no Healer would be accepted into the Order, or even considered a Healer, unless he was of noble blood. Likewise, all Healers were forbidden from using their powers to help commoners.

Quatre had broken that law continuously since he had discovered his abilities. The first commoner he had healed had been Heero. They had been eight. It wasn't more than a shallow cut, but that hadn't stopped Quatre's Master from punishing him severely. Quatre remember clearly asking his father that night if what he had done had really been wrong, and his father, who had always taught him to treat all people with the same respect and care, had assured him that it wasn't. Quatre had been punished many times after that.

There was only one law that the Healers penalized with death, and that was sharing the secrets of their teachings outside the Order. The children born with the natural ability to heal others couldn't heal more than a shallow cut without exhausting themselves and ending up unconscious for a couple of days. The Order trained the healers of noble birth since they were discovered, usually from the age of seven to ten. They trained their bodies to make them strong, and their minds with different meditation techniques to give them control. The more control they had, the more powerful they were. This training was done every day at their parents' home by an assigned Master Healer, until the child turned fifteen and entered the Temple for two years of seclusion, in which he or she would complete their training. When they left the temple, the training was over, and they were handed a medallion that helped increase their powers and proclaimed them as Healers.

It was the training which separated the noble Healers to the commoners. Even the strongest commoner healer couldn't compare to the weakest noble, and since the noble Healers wouldn't help anyone below their station, many people died unnecessarily. Quatre realized soon after he left the temple that the only way he could actually make a difference was to help train those commoner healers that could do a lot of good for the community if they only knew how. Duo had introduced Quatre to Howard and the other healers. Quatre had taught Howard and three talented girls, and then left them to pass the knowledge onto others when he was sent out to sea. Hilde had been one of them. Last Quatre knew, Hilde had infiltrated the prison to help heal the ill and prevent the diseases that originated there and affected the poorer sectors of town.

"I trust you'll be discreet," Quatre said, even though he didn't think the warning was necessary. "It's not just my life on the line."

"They worry about you more than they worry about themselves." Trowa whispered. "They respect you."

Quatre shifted his eyes back to the ground. He felt uncomfortable being seen like that. He was just a person. Nothing more, nothing less.

"You haven't told them what the curse is," Trowa said softly.

It wasn't a question but Quatre answered anyway. "I didn't feel the need to burden them with the knowledge. They don't need to know I can feel their pain every time I heal them. They wouldn't let me heal them again."

"Maybe they are right."

Quatre shook his head. "That's what the Elders want. They want me to stop helping, to be like them. They thought that if they made me feel pain then I would stop. They don't know me very well."

Trowa's voice was almost a sigh when he said, "I know."

Raising his head, Quatre looked at Trowa, and again he asked, "Why are you here?"

Trowa met his eyes. "Because I don't want you to be alone." He shifted his eyes slightly before focusing them back on Quatre. "And because I won't let you die."

Quatre's only reply was a single nod. The silence settled again in the cell, and Quatre closed his eyes and enjoyed it for a while.

* * *

**- The End -**


End file.
